


Book 1: Water

by CaptainCoughdrop



Series: Avatar the Last Airbender AU [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Avatar the Last Airbender AU, But there IS a dragon, F/F, F/M, I'm not putting the relationships because it'll ruin the ~surprise~, M/M, Other characters are mentioned/will appear in the sequel, Yeah I know there are OCs, ignore the summary it's god awful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-06-29 07:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15725208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainCoughdrop/pseuds/CaptainCoughdrop
Summary: It's been a hundred years since the Fire Nation first attacked, and twelve since the death of Avatar Augustus. With any and all waterbenders taken from their homelands, and families shattered across the globe, a new Avatar will have to rise and defeat this evil before it's too late...





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, it's an Avatar the Last Airbender AU. Few to no Avatar characters will appear, bar a few more minor ones still in their roles. I'm also going to be using a selection of 2ps as the bad guys, but they probably won't have the personality the 2ps usually have. Kind of dark 2ps. Anyway, they won't personally appear in this first fic other than in memories, etc.  
> Hope you enjoy!

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My father used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements. Only he could stop the ruthless Firebenders. But when the world needed him most, he vanished.”

“How did he vanish?”

“Huh?”

“How did he vanish?”

“No one knows.” Carlos leant forward, as if about to divulge a great secret. “Some say he’s still alive somewhere, hiding from the Fire Nation.”

Bahadir propped his chin up in his palm. “But isn’t the Avatar an Airbender? They’re quite into balance and harmony between the elements, right? They wouldn't just let the Fire Nation keep doing what it's doing, Carlos.”

Carlos frowned, scratching the back of his head as he thought. “Well, not all Airbenders are brave peacekeeping heroes, Bahadir. Every element has its losers.”

“I guess.”

Bahadir traced a drawing in the snow. Carlos huffed, apparently annoyed that he wasn’t getting the correct response from his best friend. “C’mon, work with me here. What do you want to do?”

The ‘it’s not like we can hang out in the village’ was unsaid, but Bahadir heard it anyway. He sighed, and kicked his drawing - some sort of long blob with six sausages sticking out, three on each side, and an arrow down its back. Bahadir often doodled those. Arrow monsters, Carlos called them. When Bahadir had been younger people had implied he was maybe drawing an imaginary friend or something, which was very much not true. Bahadir had only one friend, Carlos, and he was very much real.

Carlos sighed, and flopped back, flipping his hood up to keep the snow from getting into his hair, and the two sat in silence for a little while. Bahadir looked around him, taking in the ice, the snow, the water and the sky - pretty much all there was to life in the South Pole. All blue sky and white clouds, blue sea and white snow, blue and white, blue and white, with perhaps the occasional dash of grey. Even their clothes were blue and white. Bahadir's fez, a gift from his mother, was probably the only red thing for miles around.

Distantly, he reached up to toy with the black tassel. He was bored. He was... restless. He felt as though he should be out there, doing something, but he didn't quite know what. When he was younger he'd thought that he just wanted to help out around the village, but he'd been quickly dissuaded. Partly because he wasn't really big enough to help out with any of the real manual labour, and partly because the villagers, well... they weren't very fond of the strange boy with the red hat, whose mother...

Bahadir shook himself. There was no point dwelling on the past. Either way, it wouldn't help him.

But Carlos would help him - spent most of his time trying to help him - and he'd been ungrateful. After all, whilst Carlos was certainly a social pariah, it was less to do with his blood and more to do with his insistence on hanging out with Bahadir. A half-Earthbender was unusual, yes, for the relatively homogenous Southern Water Tribe, but not the worst thing in the world. At least Earthbenders were courageous and brave, willing to fight evil to their final breath. There was teasing, there was mockery, but nothing too traumatising for the son of an Earth Kingdom soldier and a Southern Water Tribe warrior.

The son of a Waterbender and a Fire Nation soldier, on the other hand...

Bahadir stomped out the last remnants of his drawing.

It wasn't his fault - he'd never asked to be born. He'd never asked for some random soldier to take a liking to his mother. He'd never asked for any of this.

As if sensing his irritation and annoyance, Carlos sat up again, running a hand over his chin. He looked tired. Bahadir sometimes forgot that Carlos was only thirteen himself. Too young to be ostracised by his entire village just for sticking up for a kid even more hated than he was.

"Any ideas for what you want to do?" Carlos asked after a moment of his eyes skimming across the horizon. They'd taken a walk down to the coast, out of sight of the village but within sight of the smoke rising from the campfires, and had taken a rest on one of the larger blocks of ice. They could have gone further, but kids weren't supposed to go out of view of the smoke, and Carlos didn't want them to get into any further trouble. Bahadir thought it was ridiculous, since he really doubted that the villagers cared enough to stop them even if they'd walked all the way to the other end of the ice shelf and into the sea, but he didn't mention that.

"We could go for a walk," Bahadir suggested, wanting to cooperate but not really knowing what to say. Carlos sighed, before standing up on the block of ice and looking around them, squinting his eyes against the glare of the sun on the snow. Bahadir wasn't really sure what his friend was doing, but copied him anyway. Not that there was anything to see. Ice, snow, sea and sky. About a mile away he could see a group of otter-penguins waddling about, calling to each other. In the other direction he could just about see a trio of tiger-seals sunning themselves on a floating piece of ice. In the very distance on the open ocean past the ice flows, he could just about make out a Fire Nation patrol boat if he squinted.

"Bastards," Carlos grumbled, before jumping down from the ice block. "Still, though. Too far away to cause any trouble."

"Right," agreed Bahadir, still not seeing where exactly this was going. Apart from their regular monthly check ins, the Firebenders always left them alone. Bahadir had always got the distinct impression that most of the soldiers hated being on the South Pole Guard just as much as the Southern Water Tribe hated them being there. "So?"

After one more furtive look around, Carlos jumped back down off of the block of ice, and hurried towards Bahadir, who narrowed his eyes. He knew that look. It was the look Carlos got when he was about to do or say something stupid.

"Show me that thing again," said Carlos, "Go on. There's no one around."

Bahadir hesitated, but his friend was right. There'd be no harm in showing Carlos again.

Carlos watched eagerly as Bahadir removed his thick gloves and closed his eyes, concentrating. The small pile of snow he'd kicked up by scuffing out his drawing began to melt, and the water spiralled upwards, twisting until it reached Bahadir's hands. It coiled around them, cool and sinuous, more like a living being than just water.

"Awesome," breathed Carlos, eyes wide as he watched.

Bahadir bit his lip, concentrating. He wasn't really very good at this - how would he be, with nobody to teach him? But he'd had a dream about doing something like this, and he wanted to check it out, see if it worked and all.

Slowly, he shifted into a stance, barely noticing as Carlos scuttled backwards out of the way.

With slow and deliberate movements, he formed the water into a ball, hovering between his hands. This was a simple move - or it seemed simple enough, from what he could remember - and he stretched his arms carefully, trying to make the ball of water into some kind of whip. He'd practiced this often enough in his and Carlos' tent, when Carlos was out running some errand and no one could see him, but he'd never got it to work properly. Even after Carlos figured out just why he'd often come back to wet clothes and bedding, and they'd found several secluded spots to practice in, he'd been incapable of doing it right.

But this time...

Bahadir stepped again, the water now held in a long whip-like shape, and - and inevitably slipped on a bare patch of ice. His foot flew forwards, his concentration broke, and the water broke from his grasp and splashed down, soaking him in icy water.

At least Carlos had the decency not to laugh this time. He had the first few times this had happened, but after a while it had apparently become less amusing, and now he just looked sympathetic.

But his sympathy was pointless. Bahadir was angry. Really angry. Why couldn't he even do this one stupid move? He'd been practicing for months. Just one stupid move.

He stayed sat on the ground, trying to calm down, with gritted teeth and clenched fists. It didn't work. Why did he have to be so useless? He couldn't even bend right, and this was an art his own mother had been known for, had been a master at. He should have inherited even a little of her talent, shouldn't he? Or had his stupid father even ruined that for him?

"Hey, uh, Bahadir-" Carlos voice sounded nervous, like Bahadir was doing something that was freaking him out. He finally opened his eyes, about to tell his friend to just leave him alone for a moment, when he realised what was happening. Thick tendrils of water surrounded him and Bahadir into what looked like a cage.

"I'm doing it!" He gasped, anger melting away, "Carlos - Carlos, I'm doing it!"

"Yeah, but Bahadir-"

"Do you think I can do the water whip?" Bahadir asked excitedly. "Well?"

"Bahadir, seriously, stop-"

"Why should I? Carlos, I'm doing it really well this time!"

"Bahadir-"

"What are you doing?!"

Bahadir flinched. The water dropped to the ground with a noisy splash, soaking him once more, but he barely noticed. One of the men from the village was staring at them, his jaw basically hitting his chest. Bahadir looked around slowly. There was him, still sat on the ground, wide eyed with disbelief; Carlos, with his arms raised to try and catch Bahadir's attention; and the man, staring at all of them.

They all remained like that for a few moments, stuck in a circle of shock, before the man slowly backed away, expression horrified, before he turned tail and ran.

Bahadir's stomach felt like lead as he and Carlos watched the man go. He was stupid - so stupid. There was a reason they had to be careful with his bending - it was illegal. In fact, it was one of the main reasons the Fire Nation kept a patrol in the area, even though the Southern Water Tribe was practically the least dangerous country of the world right now for the Fire Nation - waterbenders had been all but eradicated, they had few resources that hadn't been seized by the Fire Nation, and, to be honest? Most of them had lost hope, these days. They'd been fighting this war for over a hundred years. If there had been able to stop the Fire Nation, someone would have figured it out by now.

If that man told the Fire Nation patrol that he'd seen Bahadir waterbending, they'd take Bahadir away, whether or not they had any proof. That didn't matter to them. Not when there was the chance of someone being a waterbender. They'd arrest him, even if he was just a kid who couldn't even do one simple move, and they'd take him to the Waterbender prison, and he'd stay there until he died.

Bahadir's heart thumped painfully as Carlos stumbled towards him.

"It's okay," the older boy was saying, sounding as though he was trying not to panic. "It's okay - they won't tell, you're just a kid, and we're all one tribe."

"No we aren't." Bahadir's voice was shaking badly no matter how calm he tried to appear on the outside. "I'm the son of a Firebender, Carlos. They've been looking to get rid of me for years and you know it."

"No," said Carlos, swallowing, attempting to look brave despite the terror in his brown eyes. "I won't let them. We'll run away. We'll hide. We'll - we'll..." He seemed to run out of ideas, his gaze darting everywhere as though looking for some way out of this mess. Then his face crumpled. "This is my fault," he moaned, "This is all my fault. I shouldn't have made you do it. I'm such an idiot."

"No," said Bahadir. Perhaps Carlos' fear had washed his own away, because he was now filled by a sort of dull numbness. He followed his best friend as Carlos sank to the floor. "No, it's going to be fine."

"You're right," agreed Carlos, sniffing and scrubbing his sleeve across his eyes. "You're right - I'm sorry. What do we do?"

"I don't know," replied Bahadir, looking around him again. He wondered if he'd ever get to spend another day playing with Carlos amongst the icebergs, or even going penguin-sledding or eating sea prunes, even though he didn't like sea prunes. "But there's nothing we can do. We can only hope he doesn't tell the Firebenders."

"You're right," Carlos repeated, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," answered Bahadir. "Come on. They won't be there immediately. We have time to think."

"Right," agreed Carlos. "Maybe we could cross the Bridge of No Return and try our luck out there."

"Uh huh," nodded Bahadir, although he doubted that two inexperienced kids like them would be able to survive out there on their own. The pair stood, brushing away the cold snow.

"Or the old Fire Nation ship!" said Carlos, beginning to sound more hopeful. "We could live on that! No one goes near that thing."

"Right."

The pair began walking back towards the village. It was still very light out, the glare bouncing off the white snow almost blinding in places, but in the land of the midnight sun that meant very little. According to Bahadir's body clock, it was probably around the afternoon or evening time. He couldn't be certain, but after living in the South Pole for many years, you got an eye for this sort of thing. Carlos continued to talk, coming up with ideas ranging from stealing a row boat and sailing to the Earth Kingdom to finding one of the larger hollows in a glacier and living the rest of their lives under the ice. Bahadir nodded, well aware that none of these plans were feasible in any way, but willing to humour his best friend. If this was what kept Carlos from panicking, then that was fine.

The village seemed even less friendly than usual as he and Carlos passed through the boundary gate. Eyes turned to watch them frostily as they walked towards their small tent, towards the back and almost against the wall that encircled the village. The main fire was still flickering, and three elders were sat around it.

The back of Bahadir's neck prickled with discomfort. In a corner, he could see the man who'd seen him waterbend muttering to a couple of the other hunters. He felt sick.

If this had been anyone else in the whole tribe, in the whole South Pole, in fact, no one would have told on him. No one would have looked at him as though he was some sort of disease. They would have been happy. Proud, even, that waterbending hadn't completely left their tribe. They'd have hidden him from the Fire Nation. They wouldn't have sold him out the moment they had something against him.

"Leave us alone!" snapped Carlos when he saw one of the elders sneer at them. The elder in question turned to her fellow elders and they all laughed nastily. Inside the empty Fire Patrol office, the messenger hawk that they left for cases such as this was missing. The snow around them quivered. Bahadir grabbed Carlos' arm and dragged him towards their tent.

"Why can't they just leave us alone?" Demanded Carlos, once they were sat on the furs in their tent. "We've never done anything to them - we've always tried to help them and they're just going to..." He trailed off, apparently unable to say it out loud, and sighed. "It's just not fair, Bahadir."

"No," answered Bahadir, curling his fingers into the soft pelt. "It isn't, is it?"

Soon after that, they went to bed. He hadn't eaten since the seal jerky that morning, but he wasn't hungry. In fact, he felt a little sick. Without Carlos' ideas to distract him, he had to think, and that was a bad thing.

He knew about those Fire Nation prisons. Waterbenders were kept in the dryest locations possible, in deserts and the like, where there was no access to any liquid. Food was usually dry things such as crackers. When they were given water to drink, Waterbenders' arms were chained up and the water was fed to them with a cup on a stick. They were all kept in bare metal cages, like rats. They were never allowed to wash.

That was where they were going to send Bahadir. That was where he was going to stay where he died. This was it - his life was basically over. A shuddery sort of fear went down his spine, and he reached beneath their shared blanket to grab Carlos' hand. His friend didn't say anything, but he squeezed his hand back. Bahadir wondered if he was as scared as he was.

He didn't sleep that night.

The next day, the Firebenders arrived. Bahadir and Carlos hadn't left their tent. None of their ideas were workable in any way. There was no way out of this.

The ship was fairly small compared to the huge warships that sometimes visited with supplies, made of dark metal and flying the blood red flags emblazoned with a curled up sea raven. They were the Southern Raiders, though they didn't do much raiding these days, now that the Southern Water Tribes had been successfully shattered into many tiny villages who didn't have the organisation or manpower to put up any real struggle.

Their leader, a grizzled old guy with a sullen mouth, whose scraggly grey hair sometimes fell into his face from under his red and black helmet. He glared around at the assembled crowd. Bahadir felt a horrible, shivery sort of fear travel through his whole body. His hands began to shake. Carlos turned to him at the entrance of their tent, his eyes determined.

"Go back inside," he ordered in a whisper, "Hide under the skins. I'll tell them you ran away during the night."

Bahadir opened his mouth to argue that this was a stupid idea, and that the Firebenders would have to be qualified morons to buy it, but it wouldn't hurt to try, would it? Either way he'd be taken away and imprisoned.

He ducked back inside the tent, and buried himself beneath the mountain of furs they used as their bed. Through a tiny gap, he could still see out of the tent doors to where the Commander of the Southern Raiders was interrogating the man who'd seen Bahadir waterbend yesterday. Bahadir could hear his breath roaring in his chest as the Commander and the man, along with two other soldiers, began walking towards Carlos, stood about ten feet from the tent. Bahadir could see the tension in his shoulders and the way he'd clenched his fists to keep his fingers from trembling.

Bahadir could feel his pulse thundering in his ears as the Commander stopped before Carlos, looking huge in his black and red armour, looming over Bahadir's friend.

"Is this the one?" The Commander asked the hunter, not taking his eyes off of Carlos. Bahadir could see his friend take a breath and prepare to tell him the lie as the man nodded feverishly.

"That's right, sir," he agreed, a horrible light in his eyes. "That's the waterbender."

What?

"Grab him, men," said the Commander carelessly. The two soldiers stepped forward and grabbed Carlos' arms. Bahadir's friend seemed rigid with shock and confusion, not even putting up a fight as the Firebenders began dragging him away. The Commander nodded to the hunter, and followed his men.  
Bahadir watched for a moment, frozen to the spot with horror. He thought of Carlos with his hand raised as he, Bahadir, had been waterbending; he thought of how he'd shifted the snow just as Carlos had yelled at the elders; he thought of how that must have appeared to the rest of the village. Time seemed to stand still, locked in this one horrible moment. He blinked slowly, and then, all of a sudden, time sped up again. Carlos began kicking and yelling as Bahadir wriggled free of the furs and sprinted out of the tent.

"Wait!" he yelled, chasing them as they approached their ship once more, "Wait! Don't take him!"

"Let go of me!" cried Carlos, struggling desperately, but the soldiers kept a strong grip on his arms and dragged him steadily forward.

"It's not him!" Bahadir shouted, reaching the Commander and grabbing his wrist.

"Don't, Bahadir!" Carlos turned to look over his shoulder at him as they began walking him up onto the ship.

"I'm the waterbender!" Bahadir insisted, tugging the Commander's sleeve as the man tried to shake him off. "Leave him alone!"

The Commander snorted derisively, summoning a handful of fire and bringing his hand around to hit Bahadir in the face. Before it could make contact, Bahadir instinctively dropped his wrist and ducked away, falling to his knees in the snow.

"Wait!" he half-sobbed, "You can't take him. You don't understand!"

"I understand well enough, boy," said the Commander, glaring down at him. "I understand that you want to save your little friend. If you weren't half Fire Nation yourself, I might arrest you too. Be grateful."

"You can't take him away!" Bahadir screamed as the Commander turned again and started walking towards the ship. Carlos was being held still as they fitted handcuffs around his wrist, his eyes wide and terrified. Tears spilled over, and Bahadir began to sob. They couldn't do this - they just couldn't take Carlos away. It wasn't fair. Carlos had never hurt anyone in his life. He wasn't even a bender! "Wait!"

He hurled himself forward and just managed to catch the Commander's ankle before he stepped onto the boat. The man grunted in annoyance, and the last thing Bahadir saw before the Commander's metal-clad foot made contact with his head was Carlos' petrified eyes staring at him from the ship. And then, darkness.


	2. The Miracle of the Flying Seaweed

"Uh?"

Bahadir's head felt like it weight a million tonnes as he lifted it off the snowbank he'd been using as a pillow. He blinked, disoriented. His forehead was very painful, and he was alarmed to see a small patch of bloodstained snow beneath his him as he got to his hands and knees. The world around him came into focus - blue sky scattered with clouds, white snow trodden over with footprints. There was a big crack in the ice, but there was nothing out of place around.

Either way, something was wrong. Later on, he'd ask Carlos -

"Carlos!" Bahadir staggered to his feet, clutching his head and straining his eyes to see the Southern Raiders somewhere on the horizon. He'd find them, he'd explain, they couldn't take Carlos, they just couldn't! He looked around frantically, which just made his head pound and his vision go all spinny. "Carlos!"

"Spirits above, the brat's awake," he heard someone call back in the village. He whirled around, closing his eyes for a moment to stop the spinning, and broke into a stumbling run towards the village, his stomach lurching, and his eyes burning.

He burst through the entrance to the village. It looked the same as it always did. Everything was just as it had been everyday since Bahadir had first seen it years ago, but there was no Carlos. The most important part of the village - the part that made it home - was gone. Gone forever, if he didn't act quickly enough, and he refused to let that happen.

"Where are they?" He demanded loudly of the elders, louder than he'd ever spoken to them before in his entire life. They blinked at them, and smirked at him, and Bahadir felt his blood boil with fury and panic. "Where did they take Carlos?"

"You know where," answered an old man, his blue eyes cool and unfriendly as they fixed on Bahadir. Bahadir's heart pounded.

The elder was right. He did know. If he didn't stop them, the Firebenders would take Carlos to the same place they took all waterbenders. The same place they'd taken Bahadir's mother. Carlos would remain in a cage until the day he died. Bahadir clenched his fists - he could feel something rising inside of him, something mixed in with the terror and rage and panic. Something that made him feel as though he needed to leave the village, right now.

"Where are they now?" He rasped. He needed to know. He needed to know that he had a chance.

The elder smiled thinly and cruelly. "I imagine they'll almost be at Whaletail Island by now."

Bahadir's stomach dropped. He stared blankly at the elder, staring smugly right into his face. All he could hear was the blood roaring in his ears and his heart pounding in his chest. He had just two thoughts: he wanted to hurt them, punish them for what they'd done, for taking Carlos away possibly for good; and the loud, almost foreign-seeming voice telling him to LEAVE NOW.

The intrusive thought won out. His whole body trembling and his head spinning, he turned and he ran. He ran and he ran, through snow and over ice, not stopping until he was further away from the village than he'd ever been before, until the thin stripes of smoke had disappeared from the horizon, and he was all alone, panting and exhausted, but he still didn't stop. He kept running.

Finally, the voice in his head stopped telling him to run. He ground to a halt, panting, furious, tears flowing down his cheeks. His head pounded. It felt like something was trying to escape, like something needed to happen, but he didn't know what.

Just give in, said the foreign voice - deeper than his, with a faint accent; gentle and soothing, and Bahadir did as it said. It's alright.

He gave in - and everything seemed to explode around him.

What happened next, he wasn't quite sure of. Faces flashed through his mind, wearing all sorts of different clothes, in an explosion of colours - earthbenders in green and brown, waterbenders in blue and purple, airbenders in yellow and orange, firebenders in red and black - all of their faces different and unknown and yet somehow familiar at the same time. The final one was a middle-aged man with tan skin and wavy brown hair, bright green eyes and white teeth showing in a warm smile. The voice from before. Bahadir could feel power rushing through him, before, for the second time that day, he passed out.

When he came to again, his forehead didn't hurt so much. It still stung, but not as badly.

The need to erupt was gone as well. He felt drained, exhausted. The anger was gone, replaced by despair. There was no moment of memory-loss here. Carlos was gone, and Bahadir was never going to get him back.

He sniffed, and drew his knees up to his chest, curling into a ball. He had no idea where he was - the smoke from the village had long since disappeared from the horizon. He seemed to have fallen into a crater, which may explain how he knocked himself out, but somehow he didn’t think so. Something weird had happened, that voice in his head… Maybe he’d gone crazy. He was no expert on the human mind but he was fairly sure hallucinating a stranger’s voice wasn’t within the realms of normal.

But he didn’t care. Not one bit. Because Carlos, his best friend in the whole world, his  _ only _ friend in the whole world, was gone. He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Bahadir was never going to see him again, and he was just going to live the rest of his life as an outcast (assuming he’d be able to find his way back), and Carlos was going to live the rest of his life as a prisoner in some miserable desert. He’d be kept in a cage and at the mercy of the Fire Nation until the day he died - by natural causes or otherwise. 

That thought sent a shiver of horror down Bahadir’s spine. It made him ill to think of anyone hurting Carlos - it just felt so innately  _ wrong _ \- but Bahadir knew the Fire Nation. Any act of defiance, any disobedience, even if they just  _ suspected _ it, and they’d punish Carlos. They could burn him, or hurt him, or…

Bahadir shook himself. He wasn’t even going to think that. He couldn’t. Carlos would be fine.

“He’ll be fine,” Bahadir repeated out loud, in an attempt to make himself believe it. It didn’t really work, so he tried it again. “He’ll be fine. Carlos will be fine. He will. Carlos will be fi…”

He trailed off, no so much because he’d made himself believe, but because he caught sight of the sky. More accurately, he caught sight of the clouds. Earlier on, they’d been scattered, but now they were a thick blanket over the sky, warning of an impending storm - except for a circle of clear blue sky, directly above Carlos. He squinted up at it, momentarily distracted. He’d seen a lot of cloud formations in his time - he lived in the South Pole, there wasn’t much else to look at, to be honest - but he’d never seen anything like this.

For a moment, in his confusion, he forgot why he was out there in the first place, and he turned to ask Carlos what he thought - but, of course, Carlos wasn’t there. Carlos would never be there again.

Bahadir’s throat clogged up, and his eyes burned. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed, his tears cooling rapidly against his skin and freezing his cheeks. He rubbed his sleeve across his face desperately. He didn’t cry - he  _ never _ cried! Not for years, not since…

It was at this point, as Bahadir lifted his head in an attempt to halt the flow of tears, that he was distracted once more.

Something was moving in the sky, something dark against the ominous grey of the cloud cover. He sniffed, and squinted at it. His first instinct was to say that it was a hide, blown from one of the villages - except the air was relatively still. There was a definite breeze, but nothing strong enough to blow away one of the thick hides they used out here. In any case, even if it was, it was blowing in the wrong direction.

The thing began to come into focus, and Bahadir decided that is couldn’t be a hide. For starters, it was too long and too thin. Secondly, it appeared to have wings that powered its wavy, sinuous flight. Thirdly, it was bright green. It looked… it looked…

“Seaweed,” he said aloud, used to Carlos and his constant complaints that Bahadir kept his thoughts to himself too much.

The thought of Carlos brought more tears to his eyes, but he didn’t take his eyes off the flying seaweed. Something was telling him he shouldn’t - a bit like how he felt when he saw a wild polar bear-dog in the distance. Awesome, majestic, but also not something to turn your back on unless you wanted to end up on the menu.

Bahadir had originally thought that the flying seaweed would just go straight overhead and ignore him, but it suddenly but it’s nose down and plummeted. Bahadir watched it, absently realising just a little too late that he should probably get out the way, but somehow he wasn’t afraid. Even as the dragon landed right in front of him, he couldn’t find any fear within himself. He blinked at the creature. It blinked back.  _ He _ , his mind told him.

“Hi,” he said a little faintly, as the realisation that he was face to face with a real live  _ dragon _ sank in. The dragon snorted.

It was a little small, Bahadir thought - he’d heard about dragons before (they were a popular mascot for Fire Nation troops and ships) and he’d always rather got the impression that they were at least, say, eighty feet long, with huge white fangs, scarlet red scales and golden eyes. But this dragon couldn’t be more than thirty feet long, with stubby little protrusions that looked rather odd coming from the sides of his mouth, scales that were very much green, and eyes that were determinedly blue.

What was even odder was that not only did Bahadir not feel in the slightest bit afraid of the dragon, but he actually felt a sort of… kinship with it. He felt as if it was an old friend he’d known in childhood, which was ridiculous, because Bahadir would have certainly remembered if he’d been friends with a dragon.

The dragon made a rumbling sound and crouched down, so that his face was right in front of Bahadir’s. It seemed to be just as interested as Bahadir was. Bahadir hoped the interest in him was benign - those fangs looked much less ridiculous up close.

They studied each other for a moment. The dragon looked young - the creamy white spikes down his back were small and rounded, and his horns looked rather short. It’s head was huge, alright - probably large enough that it would be tough to squeeze into Bahadir’s tent. Then there were the dragons wings, which weren’t the ‘large as ship sails’ flying apparatus that had been described to Bahadir when he was a boy. Oh, sure, they were large, but -

Wings. The dragon had wings. The dragon could fly.

“You can fly!” Bahadir exclaimed, his heart racing in his chest. The dragon cocked his head, as though to say,  _ Yes, and?  _ But Bahadir was too distracted by his thoughts to notice. An idea was beginning to form in his head. A crazy idea, a mad idea, an idea that would never work and he knew it - but an idea nevertheless. An idea to get Carlos back.

“You can fly - you can take me to the desert!” Bahadir shouted excitedly, “We can rescue Carlos!”

It was a miracle. A crazy miracle, because there was no other way Bahadir could have snuck away from the South Pole in any other way. He couldn’t sail: he knew  _ how  _ to _ ,  _ of course, but the small boats they used for fishing in the ice flows would stand no chance against the rough polar seas. Besides, not only did Bahadir not know the way, but he’d almost certainly be spotted by one of the Fire Nation patrols, and he wouldn’t be close to able to get away.

But flying - flying would allow him to escape. The patrols wouldn’t be looking at the sky for escapees, and even if they  _ did _ happen to spot them overhead, then - judging by the speed the dragon had been flying towards Bahadir - they wouldn’t have much chance to load the catapults before they were out of range.

Bahadir didn’t think for a minute that the dragon might not appreciate being ridden - something just told him that it would be fine. This was it - he was going to get away, and he would find Carlos.

“I think I’ll call you Suyosunu,” he said, feeling as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders, trotting around the dragon and trying to figure out where to sit. He would definitely be able to find Carlos - no doubt. The universe had given him a chance, and, by the spirits, he was going to take it. “Can I sit here?”

He clambered awkwardly and as carefully as possible onto the back of the dragon, which turned to stare at him as he did so. It looked rather indignant, as though Bahadir should have asked his permission before rudely climbing on board, but not angry.

“Sorry,” said Bahadir, feeling as though it would be best to start this relationship off on a good foot. “Shall we go?”

Suyosunu continued to stare at him for a moment more, before turning and seeming to crouch low. Bahadir realised he didn’t have much to hold onto, so he instead just leant forward and wrapped his arms and legs tightly around the dragon’s long neck. Suyosunu gave a low, almost thoughtful, growl, and Bahadir felt the vibrations of it travel throughout his entire body. He tightened his grip, and the dragon launched upwards.

Bahadir clutched desperately onto the dragon’s neck. It was very warm. If it wasn’t for the icy wind blasting against his face and down the back of his neck, it would be extremely comfortable. Bahadir kept his eyes closed, afraid of loosening his grip as they climbed upwards, feeling as though he’d left his stomach behind in the crater.

It was only when they leveled out that Bahadir opened his eyes. He took a deep breath, keeping his gaze on the pale stripe down the dragon’s back, not daring to look down, as he slowly and carefully reached up to take off his hat and shove it down the front of his jacket. His whole body shook - he was convinced he would slip sideways. But he couldn’t lose his hat. It was the last thing his mother gave to him. Once the hat was secure Bahadir immediately shuffled forward and grabbed the lime green fur around Soyosunu’s shin. The dragon growled in displeasure, but Bahadir ignored him as he finally found the courage to look down.

And, boy, did he regret it. 

Bahadir’s stomach lurched unpleasantly as he saw the ant-sized speck of black that he realised was a Fire Nation ship. They were already over the sea. He could see the chunks of sea ice getting smaller and more scattered as they went. They were so high up. He felt sick.

Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Carlos,” he whispered to himself, clinging on for dear life. “We’re doing this for Carlos.”

Soyosunu gave a rumble, as though to agree with him.

 

After a little while, once the blind terror had worn off somewhat, Bahadir discovered that not only was the Southern Sea much larger than he’d always imagined, but that it was a little boring. They’d left the thick cloud cover in the South Pole, and now there was pretty much just blue. Blue sky, blue sea. No land, no ice, not even any clouds. After the first two hours the wind noise was basically reduced to nothing.

At first, he was glad; the silence and the dull surroundings gave him time to think, to plan - even with a dragon (assuming Soyosunu would be willing to help) busting Carlos out of jail wouldn’t be easy. At best, they would have to sneak into a heavily guarded desert prison, somehow release Carlos, and then sneak out again. At worst, they would have to somehow fight again, and Bahadir was smart enough to know that this wasn’t a fight he would be able to win.

He sighed. Earlier on he’d thought that this was it - he was going to get Carlos back easy as anything, and everything was going to be fine.

Bahadir’s eyes traced the stripe of creamy white stripe down Soyosunu’s back. He’d avoided, as much as possible, looking down; he had once or twice to see if they’d reached the Earth Kingdom yet, but nothing yet. Soon he would again, just to see. But not yet. They were still over the sea for now - there was no point in getting worried about anything.

He rested his cheek against Soyosunu’s warm neck. He didn’t know what he could do; but he had to try. For Carlos’ sake, he had to try.

  
  



	3. Airbenders and Explanations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, 'Anne' is the Turkish word for mother.

Incredibly, and despite the sheer amount of time Bahadir had spent passed out in the snow during the last day or so, he managed to fall into a light doze as they flew over yet more water (he’d never realised just how big the sea was between the South Pole and the Earth Kingdom). He couldn’t remember it taking this long the last time he’d made the journey – in the opposite direction to be fair, but then why would that make a difference? – but then, he’d been very young at the time.

As he slept, he remembered.

 

Bahadir had always thought that his mother was the most beautiful person in the whole world – or the whole Si Wong Desert, anyway, and to him at the time that was the world. Even just before they were separated, she still seemed to glow with a sort of inner light, brightening their cell even when the lights were turned out and Bahadir could barely see. Anne was always a warm and soothing presence.

She was always at her best, Bahadir always thought, when the guards let them out to take a walk in the courtyard during the day. In the hottest hours, she and Bahadir would sit beneath the shade of a large tarpaulin stretched between four posts, eating their crackers and chewing the tough dried meat they were given to eat, sometimes talking but mainly just trying to survive the heat. Waterbenders were a Polar people – they were not adapted to the harsh desert climate.

Once the main heat of the day was over, they’d leave the shade and have a walk around the dusty courtyard – to take the air, Anne always said. Guards watched their every move, stood in the cool shade of the buildings and watching them through the windows. You could always tell the newbies because they’d wear their full armour, even in the height of summer. Sometimes they’d even pass out due to heatstroke and the more experienced guards, dressed down in their red casual clothes, would have to come and haul them into the building to revive them with a drink of water.

The waterbenders only got two drinks a day – once in the morning, once in the evening. Their arms would be chained, and the water would be fed to them with a cup on a stick by a guard – about a pint at each serving because the guards wanted them locked up, not dead due to dehydration – except for the children. The children like Bahadir were allowed to just drink by themselves in a separate room.

Bahadir hadn’t minded – he hadn’t known anything was wrong, after all. He’d been born in the Si Wong Desert prison with Anne and the daily courtyard routine and the guards and the other prisoners. Anne and the other adults told him stories about the South Pole, of course (North Pole waterbenders had their own prison elsewhere in the desert) but it didn’t feel very real. Somewhere covered in ice and snow? With water everywhere? With no guards? Nonsense. Bahadir would always nod along, but he never truly believed it.

Anne was always smiling to him, always calm – the only time Bahadir saw her angry was when Father came to visit. He was never Baba, like Mother was Anne; always Father. Father was a guard, the super guard, almost, representing everything wrong with the Fire Nation in Bahadir’s opinion. He was smug, angry and aggressive, always being mean to Anne and splitting them up. He would pick Bahadir up and bring him to the desert outside the prison. Bahadir had always been fascinated, even though all there was to see was more dunes and blue sky, further reinforcing the idea that the Si Wong Desert was all there was in the world.

Then Father would drill him, showing him firebending stances and even showing him lightning bending sometimes – Bahadir didn’t like that. Father said it was beautiful. Bahadir thought it was scary. But he never said anything. He’d never made Father angry, and he didn’t want to. Father was irritable enough as it was, especially when, every time and without fail, Bahadir completely failed to firebend.

Not that Bahadir really tried. Father would tell him to reach down, feel the fire inside, but Bahadir never did. He did the stances, but he never reached for anything. He knew that if he did firebend Father would carry him away for ever and ever and he’d never see Anne again.

“That’s what happened to your brother,” Anne would say, her eyes hollow, and it was only when she spoke about Sadiq that she looked truly beaten down and defeated, so Bahadir didn’t ask about Sadiq very much. Apparently, they’d met when he was just a baby, but then Sadiq had managed to firebend when Father came to visit and Father had taken him away to be trained properly.

As he got older, Bahadir’s interest in Sadiq would grow, but just like the South Pole, Sadiq was a fairy-tale, a warning against firebending with father.

It was a funny thing to say, but despite everything, Bahadir had been happy. He’d been born into that life – he’d known nothing different. He’d never known anything different – or better – to compare the prison life to.

So it was a shock when he was made to leave.

Nobody ever explained why they were being released. More like kicked out, Bahadir had always thought. He hadn’t wanted to leave. He’d never asked to leave. He’d even gone to a guard and begged to be allowed to stay. The guard had just laughed.

Bahadir had been released because he wasn’t a bender. Not a Firebender nor a Waterbender – or he hadn’t known he was a Waterbender at the time – so there was no point wasting valuable resources keeping him in the desert. So, he had to leave.

Without Anne.

He’d not been a particularly demonstrative child where crying had been concerned, but the day he was taken away from Anne he’d sobbed and sobbed, curled into a ball in the back of the carriage they were being transported in. The adults – captured water tribe soldiers who were non-benders and had been deemed to be sufficiently broken down – had tried half-heartedly to comfort him at first, before turning away and ignoring him, leaving him to bawl in the corner.

At some point, they stopped off somewhere to pick up more prisoners, and another child was put into the carriage with them.

“Hi,” the other boy had said, sounding thoroughly miserable as he’d sat down beside Bahadir. “I’m Carlos.”

 

It was at this point, thanks to Suyosunu very suddenly deciding to turn his nose down and go into a steep descent, that Bahadir was jolted awake as his stomach clenched. He yelped and clutched tighter at Suyosunu’s neck. The dragon ignored him, continuing their plummet.

As Bahadir had slept, apparently they’d reached land – they were surrounded by tall, steep mountains, shrouded in mist. Barely even mountains – just pillars of stone with a few clumps of green vegetation clinging on for dear life.

Bahadir would have enjoyed seeing such a beautiful and colourful view, but he didn’t have the time, as Suyosunu suddenly veered left. Bahadir shrieked and clutched tighter.

“Where are we going?!” he yelled above the roar of the wind. Suyosunu ignored him. Bahadir got a sudden dose of terror – did dragons have nests? Did they kidnap humans to feed their young? Is that what Suyosunu was doing?

Suddenly Suyosunu twisted right around another mountain, close enough that Bahadir could have reached out and touched the plants if he had so desired. Then they’d cleared the stone pillar, Suyosunu straightened out again, and Bahadir’s jaw dropped.

In front of them was the most beautiful collection of buildings he’d ever seen. Built atop a stone pillar, with no clear way to get up to them, were a collection of shining white buildings and walls. All of them had blue rooves, and they led up to the tallest building, a round tower so tall it seemed to touch the clouds themselves. Bahadir stared, his jaw hanging open, before Suyosunu suddenly dropped straight down again.

“Quit doing that!” Bahadir shouted, wincing at the pain from his bitten tongue. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Suyosunu thought this was funny. Except, he thought savagely, that was impossible, because dragons couldn’t think.

As if punishing him for that thought, Suyosunu suddenly rocketed upwards, skating up the side of a stone pillar, before they arrived at a piece of flat ground, where he landed. Bahadir scrambled off the dragon, gasping for air and glaring at the reptile.

“What?” he snapped, “Why are we here?”

Suyosunu considered him thoughtfully, before his head snapped around to stare into the forest. Bahadir opened his mouth to ask what he’d seen, when he heard something too.

“I did! It was a dragon!” It was a boy’s voice, older than Bahadir. He froze – what if they were soldiers?

“A dragon? Are you sure?” A woman’s voice this time, and the footsteps came closer. Bahadir felt his legs tense, preparing to run, not that there was anywhere he could go short of throwing himself off the mountain.

“If Brat says it was a dragon,” said a girl’s voice, “Then it was a dragon.”

“Alright, Natalya,” said the woman good naturedly, and a moment later, three people appeared from the trees.

All three were dressed in orange and yellow, though the oldest woman had a deep red headband and belt. Her clothing was also different – the younger two both wore a reddish-orange shawl attached to their arms over high-collared yellow jumpsuits, fastened with matching reddish-range belts and under-trousers. Meanwhile, the woman wore a long, hooded robe, in the same reddish-orange as the younger two, over her high-collared yellow dress. All three of them had blue arrows tattooed onto their head and hands, and light hair – the woman’s blonde, and the two youngers’ a more silvery colour.

“You’re Air Nomads!” gasped Bahadir as he came to the realisation, startling the boy who dropped his basket of fruits. He couldn’t help it – he’d heard of Air Nomads of course, but he’d never _seen_ one before. He’d overheard the elders telling some of the other children that in the old days the Air Nomads would visit the South Pole to sell their wares and network with other nations, but that thanks to the war they didn’t do that anymore – the elder had spat that they were cowards. Bahadir thought they were probably sensible to avoid Fire Nation patrols, and besides, why would they want to visit the South Pole?

“That’s a dragon,” the woman squeaked, bringing up her hand to brush her hair from her eyes, revealing her arrow more clearly. Then her eyes darted to look at Bahadir. “You’re from the Water Tribe.”

“Yes,” Bahadir responded to both, “We landed here – I don’t know why. I’m sorry for trespassing.”

The woman blinked, and then shook herself from her stupor. “Well that’s… I see.”

“I’m from the South Pole,” Bahadir went on, feeling rather awkward. “I’m looking for my friend – he was taken by Fire Benders. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him?”

“No, dear, I’m afraid not,” she responded, glancing once more at Suyosunu before stepping carefully towards Bahadir. “I doubt we’d see them anyway – it’s often quite misty up here and those ships are quite fast.”

“Oh.” Bahadir’s shoulders slumped, and he silently cursed Suyosunu for bringing him this way.

“Where did you get a dragon?” demanded the youngest girl suddenly, stepping forward and staring hard at Bahadir. “Dragons don’t live in the South Pole.”

“Natalya,” said the woman sternly, before turning to Bahadir once more, “I’m sorry, dear, how rude of us. My name is Yekaterina, and these are my siblings Natalya and Ivan. It’s nice to meet you…?”

“Bahadir,” he responded, “And this is Suyosunu. I don’t know what he was doing in the South Pole but he let me ride on him and I needed a way to find my friend.”

“I see.” Yekaterina tilted her head. “I’m sorry, but are you a Waterbender?”

Bahadir hesitated. Air Nomads were technically allies of the Water Tribes, from what Bahadir had heard, but what if he was wrong? What if they were with the Fire Nation after all? He gazed distrustfully at Yekaterina, and she smiled soothingly – for a moment, he was reminded of Anne. He firmed his resolve.

“Yes,” he said. “But they thought my friend was the bender which is why they took him.”

“And how old are you?”

Bahadir blinked, confused, but answered regardless; “Twelve.”

“Sestra?” said Ivan, speaking for the first time after tearing his gave from Suyosunu. Yekaterina seemed deep in thought.

“Well, would you like to spend the night at the temple?” she asked kindly, leaning to pick up Ivan’s basket and push it back into his arm. “I’m sure the elders would be pleased to meet you.”

 

As it so happened, the elders were very much _not_ pleased to meet him. In fact, when Yekaterina introduced him – _he’s a twelve-year-old waterbender, elders, and oh-by-the-way-did-I-mention he arrived on a dragon_ – they looked downright angry.

“Ivan, Natalya, take our guest outside,” snapped one of the elders, “Yekaterina, we will speak you _privately_.”

Bahadir squirmed, glanced unsurely over his shoulder at Yekaterina as he was led out of the meeting hall. She smiled at him, and then turned to face the elders.

“What’s happening?” he asked Ivan as he was led out into the mountain air once more. It was early evening, still light but getting cooler, and Bahadir was glad of his thick coat. He also wondered just how the Airbenders – who all seemed to be wearing clothes made of the same thin orange and yellow fabrics. “I didn’t mean to get Yekaterina into trouble.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Ivan as Natalya huffed. They led Bahadir to a bench and they sat down. Ivan glanced at him. “Um, just out of curiosity, can you show some waterbending?”

“I’m not very good,” said Bahadir, “I mean, there wasn’t anybody to teach me and I couldn’t say anything in case the Fire Nation heard.”

“Oh.” Ivan exchanged another look with Natalya. Bahadir frowned. There had been a lot of that – the siblings exchanging meaningful glances, looking very serious, and then not explaining anything. Honestly, it was getting a bit annoying.

“What?” he asked, catching their attention again, “You keep doing that. What is it?”

“Well, uh,” Ivan began, but Natalya interrupted him.

“Are you the Avatar?” she asked abruptly.

“Am I… what?”

“The Avatar.”

“No.” Bahadir looked at both of them, a little incredulous. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can only bend water, and I can’t even do that well.”

“But you have a dragon,” Natalya pointed out, “Those aren’t exactly common, are they?”

“Well, no,” admitted Bahadir. “But that doesn’t mean anything. That just means I got lucky.”

Natalya raised an eyebrow doubtfully, but just as Bahadir was about to further make his point, Yekaterina appeared from the doors of the meeting hall. The elders looked furious behind her, but Yekaterina’s shoulders were held back and her eyes sparkled with victory.

“Bahadir!” she called, “Could you come in here and do something for me?”

“Ok,” said Bahadir, glad to leave this conversation. It was nonsense, of course, but it made him uncomfortable.

Yekaterina led him inside, through the meeting hall – Bahadir stuck close to her, feeling the heat of the elders’ glares on his back – and into another room, full of…

“Toys?” he asked blankly, looking to Yekaterina. “Why toys?”

“A gift!” smiled Yekaterina. “You can pick four.”

“Oh,” Bahadir fidgeted awkwardly. “I couldn’t possibly…”

“You can,” said Yekaterina, “And I want you to take your time and look at each one, alright? As a favour to me.”

Bahadir looked around the room, at the hundreds of toys lining the walls, and swallowed. “Alright.”

“Good!” Yekaterina beamed, beginning to walk out of the room, “I’ll wait in the main hall. Take as long as you need.”

She closed the door, and Bahadir took another look at the room. It was packed to bursting, full of every toy imaginable, and he began slowly circling, looking around at the different toys on offer.

It was a strange thing to offer him, he thought. He was twelve, not five.

He ran his fingers slowly over the different toys, lost in thought, before he eyes caught on to something. He reached, standing on tip-toes, and grasped a small wooden toy. An animal, though it wasn’t a species he recognised.

Still, though, it felt familiar, feeling him with warmth as though he’d just had a hot drink. He smiled. One down.

A while later, he found something else – a little drum that you twisted in your hands. The type of thing that he imagined all parents dreaded their child getting their hands on. Somewhere else, he found a little wooden turtle, and a ragdoll stitched to look like a Water Tribe warrior, complete with wolf helmet and war paint.

When he arrived back in the main hall, feeling rather cheerful, Yekaterina was waiting at the door. Upon seeing him and taking a look at what he’d picked out, her eyes shone victoriously again, in a way that made Bahadir somewhat suspicious, but he followed her inside the hall anyway.

“As you can see, Bahadir has chosen some particular toys,” said Yekaterina sweetly, motioning for Bahadir to sit. “Show them the toys you picked out, dear.”

Bahadir glanced nervously at her, but did as she asked, laying them out on the table. There was a grim silence.

“Why did you choose those?” asked one of the elders, watching him carefully.

“I don’t know, sir,” Bahadir responded.

“Did they feel… familiar?”

“Yes!” Bahadir looked up, glad to hear it said for him. “That’s exactly how they felt!”

The elder pulled a face, before shuffling to sit up straighter and leaning over to talk to his colleagues. Bahadir turned to face Yekaterina, but she just gave him a soothing smile and a thumbs up. He turned to the elders as they looked back at him.

“Those four toys are all relics,” said the centre elder, a woman with incredibly hair that reached the floor, “All of them belonged to previous Avatars.”

“Oh,” said Bahadir, uncomfortable. Trust his luck that the only ones he was interested in were priceless pieces of history.

“Out of four thousand, those are the ones you chose,” the woman reiterated. “They felt familiar.”

“… And?” Bahadir asked hesitantly. He had a strong feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It means that you, Bahadir Adnan,” she said, “Are the newest incarnation of the Avatar.” She looked him up and down. “Congratulations.”


	4. Yekaterina Tells a Story

“But you don’t understand!” Bahadir said, for what felt like the millionth time that day, as he sat with Yekaterina, Ivan and Natalya in their small room. It seemed as though, by being the ones to find him, the siblings had therefore unwittingly taken the responsibility of taking care of him. Behind him, with his tail draped over Bahadir’s shoulder, was Suyosunu, his head sticking out onto a balcony and breathing deeply as he dozed. “I’ve only ever bent water. I’ve never bent anything else.”  
“But you managed to choose out the four relics out of four thousand that belonged to previous Avatars,” Yekaterina said patiently, as she had repeated over and over again, ever since the elders had made their announcement.  
“It must have been a coincidence.”  
“Out of four thousand,” Yekaterina reiterated gently. If it had been anybody else, he would probably have started shouting by now, but he didn’t really want to yell at Yekaterina. She was just too nice.  
“And you arrived on a dragon,” said Natalya – this seemed to be a major sticking point for her – as she played with a tiny tornado she’d created, swirling on the tip of her finger as she lay back against Ivan. “All Avatars have familiars.”  
Bahadir opened his mouth to argue – as a waterbender, shouldn’t his familiar be a native of the South Pole? – but Yekaterina spoke once more, “Bahadir, have you had any… odd experiences, recently?”  
Bahadir stared at her. From being visited by a dragon, to flying to the Southern Air Temple, to being told he was the Avatar because he picked up some children’s toys, he seemed to have had an excess of odd experiences over the last few days. Yekaterina seemed to realise this and scratched her head, crinkling her nose in thought.  
“Oh, how to phrase this – have you… I don’t know, it’s been a while since I read up on the previous Avatars,” she said, “But I believe common experiences for young avatars are passing out? Perhaps hearing the voices of previous avatars trying to talk to them? Getting their familiar – well, that’s already happened – or bending an element that they shouldn’t have?”  
“I can bend water,” Bahadir replied, “Which you’d expect, since I’m from the Southern Water Tribe.”  
He didn’t really want to confront the other two points, which hit a little too close to home, although it did set him wondering. That voice – had it been the voice of the previous avatar? That was… cool, in a way, but also deeply weird and a little uncomfortable. Bahadir wasn’t much keen on being constantly watched by a bazillion previous avatars at all times, to be honest.  
“Who was the previous Avatar?” he asked, now that he was on the subject and Yekaterina seemed so knowledgeable, “He was an Airbender, wasn’t he?”  
“He was,” Yekaterina nodded, smoothing out her cloak, “Augustus.”  
Bahadir sat back and listened, alongside Ivan and Natalya, as Yekaterina told the story.  
Augustus had been born at the Western Air Temple around forty years ago. He’d been a very talented airbender and had begun accidentally bending other elements in moments of excessive emotion at a very early age, to the point that his status as the Avatar had been a sort-of tongue-in-cheek open secret. However, by the time he was thirteen the monks gave in and admitted what everyone had already known anyway: Augustus was the Avatar.  
“How did he react to that?” Bahadir asked Yekaterina, making sure to keep his tone of voice casual and not sound as though he was at all desperate. He obviously did a bad job of it, because Yekaterina gave him a soft smile.  
“He was worried, of course,” she said, although Bahadir had a sneaking suspicion that she only did so in order to make him feel better, “But he’d known at the back of his mind for years, so it wasn’t so much of a surprise for him. Either way, he was already a very talented airbender, so he was sent to the Northern Water Tribe-”  
“Typical,” muttered Bahadir.  
“-to be trained as a waterbender and was apprenticed to the greatest master of the time – I forget his name – and trained alongside other students. He became especially close to a girl named Nefertari, a healer. They would often practice their water-bending together, and when Augustus was sixteen and had mastered water as much as possible in these times of war, she went with him to the Earth Kingdom.”  
“She left her home?” asked Ivan, sounding rather oddly sad for somebody hearing just a story. “Just like that?”  
“Just like that,” responded Yekaterina, giving her brother an unfathomable look, before returning to her story.  
Once he’d entered the Earth Kingdom, Augustus’ first port of call was the great capital city of Ba Sing Se. However, according to Yekaterina, he ran into some trouble with the law there, and left soon after. He bounced from master to master, travelling with Nefertari. They even gained a new travelling companion, a girl named Aristomache, after they met her on the other side of the Serpent’s Pass, but she was a non-bender, so she couldn’t teach him earthbending.  
“Could she fight?”  
“A person is valuable in a mission even if they can’t fight, Natalya,” said Yekaterina sternly, “but, as it happened, yes she could.”  
She cleared her throat and continued her story.  
“They eventually found their way to the other great Earth Kingdom city: Omashu. There Augustus would meet another friend, and finally meet somebody to teach him earthbending.”  
“Erhardt,” said Ivan knowledgeably.  
“That’s right. Erhardt was a trainee soldier in the Omashu army, and even though they were very different, he and Augustus became very good friends. As a team, they would often help on raids against the Fire Nation and became rather infamous. It was that that drew the last member of their group to them. Jahangir was a Fire Bender. He disagreed with the actions of his country, so he ran away to find Augustus. By this point, they were all… hmm… I should say around twenty years old or so. They became quite a fearsome team.”  
“But then the team broke up,” said Ivan.  
“Unfortunately, yes.” Yekaterina sighed, “To be fair, they all had such strong personalities, I suppose it was difficult for them all to get along together. Jahangir and Nefertari left first. From what you hear, Jahangir and Augustus had always had something of a tempestuous relationship, but we don’t know why Nefertari chose to go with him. After all, she’d given up her home for Augustus, and they’d always got along well. But either way, they left, and joined rebel groups around Gaoling. Aristomache left next – we don’t know what happens to her. Perhaps she returned to her family, the Gan Jin – perhaps not. We don’t know for sure.”  
“What about Erhardt?”  
Yekaterina sighed, like this was the bit she liked the least. “Well, Erhardt and Augustus stayed together. Everybody always said that Erhardt was the stern one, and Augustus was the fun one. I don’t know, maybe Erhardt got sick of him after a while. Nobody knows. But one day, they got involved in a huge battle, over the control of a fort near a place called Pohuai, up north. But things went against them, and…”  
“And?” Bahadir leant forward, interested.  
“Well…” Yekaterina seemed singularly hesitant to go into the matter.  
“Erhardt had killed him,” said Natalya bluntly.  
“Now, we don’t know that for sure,” said Yekaterina hurriedly, “It may have been an accident.”  
Natalya pulled a face, and Bahadir cocked his head.  
“But… why? I thought you said they were friends?”  
“They were,” said Yekaterina sadly, “But either way, Augustus died. And you were born.”  
She didn’t mean it that way, Bahadir knew, but the way she said it made him shudder. He’d always known that the Avatar Cycle meant that there could only be one at a time, but to hear it like that was chilling. For the first time he really realised what it meant, realised that it had taken the loss of a life for him to be born.  
“And what about Erhardt?” he asked, trying to distract himself, although this subject was hardly a light one, “What happened to him?”  
“He was captured and executed, wasn’t he?” said Ivan, still looking a little glum.  
“That’s right,” agreed Yekaterina.  
“Jahangir and Nefertari?”  
“They had died a year before. As far as I know, the group never contacted one another again after they broke up.”  
Bahadir huffed out a sigh. It was hardly an uplifting, hopeful story, nor was it particularly encouraging, but he supposed he’d been the one to ask the question. They all sat in silence for a while.  
“Hey,” said Ivan, rousing himself and obviously trying to be kind, “You know, Augustus had twin sons, and they still live at the Western Air Temple – maybe you could talk to them.”  
Bahadir nodded, although he wasn’t sure how happy Augustus’ sons would be to see him of all people – after all, in many ways, he was the replacement for their father. He wondered how he’d feel if a stranger came along, claiming to be the reincarnation of his mother. He couldn’t imagine that he’d welcome them with open arms.  
Bahadir jumped out his skin when a booming crash echoed through the entire temple, but the three siblings didn’t even flinch.  
“The dinner bell,” Natalya explained.  
Dinner, in Bahadir’s opinion, contained far too many leaves and not nearly enough meat, but he kept quiet. Not that he had much to say, to be honest – he was distracted. All he could think of was what Yekaterina had told him. He thought about Augustus having all of his friends, and all of those friends betraying him in the end. He wondered what could make a man kill his own best friend in cold blood.  
Bahadir tried to imagine if he and Carlos were at the end of their tethers with each other, but he couldn’t quite do it. He’d been angry with Carlos before, and Carlos with him, but never had he ever thought about killing him. Of course, he was still only twelve, and Augustus and Erhardt had been grown men, so it was probably different. Adults were a complex species that Bahadir still didn’t fully understand, so he couldn’t say.  
He was busy thinking this, and busy tucking into a fruit pie that was so far the meal’s only redeeming feature, when the Head Monk called on him again. Beside him, Yekaterina straightened, and he could almost feel her go a little tense.  
“Avatar,” the Head Monk began, but Bahadir cut her off, because why weren’t these people listening to him?  
“I’m not the Avatar,” he said as patiently as possible. The Head Monk gave him a very bored look and ploughed on.  
“We have arranged a teacher for you,” she went on, disregarding his previous statement entirely. Bahadir huffed, but found he wasn’t really angry – he was beginning to have doubts too, “Master Pema will begin tutoring you tomorrow morning.”  
Bahadir opened his mouth, but Natalya beat him to it.  
“He can’t,” she said, “He needs to follow the cycle – he has to master water-bending first.”  
“Silence,” hissed the Head Monk. Natalya’s hackles went up, but Ivan squeezed her hand under the table, and she subsided. The Head Monk glared at them for a moment more, before turning back to Bahadir. “We will provide you with your own room. You will be safe here.”  
“Um, well, I’m very grateful, Ma’am,” Bahadir said carefully, “But I’m afraid that’s not possible.”  
The Head Monk’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”  
“I’m sorry. You see, I need to find my friend, Carlos – that’s why I left the South Pole in the first place. I’ll leave tomorrow morning, if possible – I’m sorry for troubling you.”  
“That, Avatar, is not going to happen.”  
Bahadir just spluttered for a moment, in the face of such solid opposition to his argument. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally it was Yekaterina who – for what felt like the fiftieth time – came to his rescue.  
“But, Ma’am,” she said, raising her hand and gaining the cool-eyed attention of the Head Monk, “Natalya is right – Bahadir has to master water before any other element. Air is the last on his cycle. He needs to go to the Northern Water Tribe, and surely he can find his friend on the way.”  
The Head Monk gave her a very sour look.  
“Unfortunately,” she said icily, “With the world in such chaos with the war, we cannot risk losing the Avatar to the Fire Nation. He must stay here. When it is safer, he may travel north. For now, the Avatar is safe here.”  
“But what about Carlos?” snapped Bahadir, glaring at the Head Monk. “What about him? He’s not safe – he’s a prisoner of the Fire Nation, because of me, and I have to find him! What, does he just not matter?”  
“No.”  
Bahadir’s mouth moved silently as he sat there, flabbergasted.  
“But – but – I thought Air Benders believed in the importance of all life?” he said, bewildered, glancing around at Yekaterina for assurance. She was staring down at the table, and for the first time since Bahadir had arrived, she looked angry. Up at the head table the Head Monk’s eyes were colder than ever.  
“Avatar, you will spend the night under the care of my students.” She motioned to something behind him, and Bahadir spun around as two monks stepped forward and grabbed his shoulders. Bahadir could do nothing but splutter as they hauled him to his feet.  
“Yekaterina?” Ivan said, half-rising to his feet. Yekaterina caught his arm.  
“Sit down, Ivan,” she said tiredly. “Bahadir… I’m sorry. We’ll see you later, okay?”  
Bahadir nodded, barely able to speak – this was a disaster. An unquantifiable disaster. All his life, he’d heard of the Air Nomads being kind, gentle and helpful. Even when the elders had called them cowards, they’d accepted that they did their best to benefit others.   
As he sat down in his new room that night, which was utterly average except for the rather glaringly obvious lack of any windows and the rather large lock on the outside of the door, and listened to the low hum of the guards talking outside the door, he curled up on his side, and wondered if he’d ever see his friend again.


	8. Mysterious Dreams and Daring Escapes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re the Avatar,” he said, managing to keep his voice steady – impressively so, he thought, given the eeriness of the current situation. “Augustus.”
> 
> The man grinned, his hair shifting to further reveal the blue arrow tattooed onto his forehead.
> 
> “Right!” he said, purely cheerful in a way that no dead person – or, Bahadir thought bitterly, Airbender – had any right to be. “The Avatar. That’s me. Or rather, it was me. It’s you, now.”

Bahadir was in a different world. Above him, _far_ above, was the ground – mossy, dark, shadowy rock, overgrown with strange vines and it was rough and unfertile. Below him was the cold flagged stone of the floor, and below that –

Bahadir’s stomach flipped when he looked over his shoulder. Just behind hm, the floor ended in a sharp drop into vast, endless expanses of cloudy white nothingness. Intertwined with tendrils of white mist were buildings – buildings which had been built from the ground far above. The buildings were just like those that Bahadir had seen at the Southern Air Temple, with their layers of sloping roofs and their pointed tops. But instead of the neat white and blue of the south, these buildings were stone, with mossy green roofs and golden peaks, with the occasional outcroppings of green leaves.

The whole place was silent and deserted, which did nothing to make Bahadir feel any better.

“Hello, Bahadir.”

Bahadir jumped out of his skin. He had been sure that there had been nobody but him just a second ago – but there, not two metres away, was a man. An airbender, clearly, but wearing different clothing to any Bahadir had seen at the Southern Air Temple – there was very little of the reddish orange colour, aside from a sash tied around his waist. The rest of his outfit was yellow – loose trousers and a high-collared yellow shirt with the same tied off triangular cuffs as those that Ivan and Natalya wore. Over the shirt was a yellow cape, and over that a chunky wooden necklace with a large bead at the bottom, inscribed with the symbol of the Air Nomads.

A shiver passed through Bahadir, a prickle that started in his scalp and travelled right down to his toes. An awareness – a familiarity.

“You’re the Avatar,” he said, managing to keep his voice steady – impressively so, he thought, given the eeriness of the current situation. “Augustus.”

The man grinned, his hair shifting to further reveal the blue arrow tattooed onto his forehead.

“Right!” he said, purely cheerful in a way that no dead person – or, Bahadir thought bitterly, Airbender – had any right to be. “The Avatar. That’s me. Or rather, it was me. It’s you, now.”

“Are you sure?” asked Bahadir glumly, although it was more a last-ditch attempt to deny fate. Bahadir certainly didn’t know an awful lot about the private life of previous Avatars, but he would hazard a guess that he probably had better things to be doing than visiting random kids who _weren’t_ his successor.

“Absolutely!” Augustus grinned at him – if he was at all unhappy to be in the presence of his new incarnation (was that how it worked? Thinking about it made Bahadir’s head hurt) then it didn’t show. If anything, he looked positively gleeful. Bahadir supposed someone had to be. “You have no _idea_ how long I’ve been waiting to meet you! To talk to you! Hanging about in the Spirit World is pretty cool and everything, and the other Avatars aren’t bad, but I’ve been waiting for this for so long! We’re going to be such good friends! It’s going to be-”

Augustus trailed off, possibly because he caught sight of Bahadir’s rather flabbergasted expression. This… wasn’t what he’d expect the Avatar to be. Even after Yekaterina describing Augustus as ‘the fun one’, Bahadir had still expected a level of… well, gravitas was probably not the right world, but perhaps… solemnity? Quiet wisdom? Bahadir wasn’t sure, but he _certainly_ hadn’t expected this. It was like talking to Carlos.

Augustus coughed, put his hand on his hip, and seemed to be attempting to look a little more serious.

“Ahem,” he said, “Bahadir. Yes.” He opened his eyes again and looked at Bahadir. “You, Bahadir, are the new Avatar.”

“Yes,” said Bahadir faintly, “Yes, you said.”

“So I did.” Augustus looked a little embarrassed, “Well, it’s true. You are.”

“I know,” agreed Bahadir, wondering why they were spending quite so long on this subject. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, true, but it was basically undeniable now.

“Of course,” nodded Augustus.

They lapsed into silence. Bahadir was deeply tempted to ask about Erhardt, and to a lesser extent Jahangir, Nefertari and Aristomache, but he felt that they probably didn’t know each other quite well enough for such a personal and delicate topic yet. Finally, when the silence began to become a little uncomfortable, Bahadir asked another question that had been bothering him, and one that was rather more pressing.

“Where are we?”

“Oh!” Augustus looked around in interest, as though he hadn’t really thought about their surroundings before now. Well, that was all well and good for _him_ , thought Bahadir, he was _dead_. Bahadir, on the other hand, was very much alive, and he’d prefer to keep it that way. “Well, Bahadir, where do you think we are?”

Bahadir blinked at him. So far, his previous life was rather spectacularly unhelpful.

“Well, it’s not in my world,” he said slowly. “Everything’s wrong – it’s topsy turvy.” His eyes widened. “Is this – is this the spirit world?”

Augustus laughed, not unkindly, but Bahadir still blushed.

“Not quite,” he said with a wide smile; “Take another look.”

Bahadir frowned, but did as he was told. He turned, still a bit embarrassed, and looked around him again. Everything was exactly the same, and nothing had changed, but –

The cloudy white abyss was still fathoms deep and still made Bahadir nervous, but instead of being endless, across from them was a cliff. Bahadir blinked and looked upwards. This time, the earth didn’t make up the entire roof, it stopped, and above it was the cornflower blue sky, painted with a few cute little clouds. Bahadir shook his head, barely able to believe it, and turned his gaze to the hanging buildings. The roofs weren’t roofs – they were ledges. Now that he looked round, the earth above jutted out from a cliff that went down, and carved into it were pathways and stairs.

A flash of colour caught Bahadir’s eye, and he whirled to follow it. A person – an airbender, clearly –  leapt between the hanging structures, seemingly blown by the breeze. Bahadir watched, and then jumped when he saw two more, stood talking on one of the ledges to his left. Yet another rushed into one of the buildings.

A laugh reached him, echoey and distorted, as two airbender children chased each other through one of the archways.

“Is this… an air temple?” asked Bahadir, turning back to Augustus, who was smiling as he watched to nearby Airbenders sit together with their legs dangling off the edge.

“That’s right.”

“The… Western Air Temple?”

Augustus beamed, as though Bahadir had solved a terribly difficult logic puzzle.

Bahadir opened his mouth, closed it again, and then changed his mind. “They weren’t here before.”

“I think they were.” Augustus looked around again, an odd, wistful expression crossing his face. “Perhaps you just weren’t looking closely enough.”

This was all too much for Bahadir. He tried to hold it back, he really did, but it had been a long, tiring, and stressful few days, and the “Is this you trying to be wise?” slipped out regardless.

Augustus blinked, and then burst out laughing. Bahadir clenched his fists. He wanted information, he wanted reassurance, he wanted _answers_.

“This is me telling you that as the Avatar, you have to accept that sometimes things aren’t what they first appear,” said Augustus finally, “You were afraid, so you saw an alien world. You allowed your fear to control you. But once you looked closer, you see that it’s not so strange and unusual after all.”

Bahadir thought that buildings hanging from cliffs over endless abysses could certainly be classed as out of the ordinary, but he didn’t mention this.

“There are going to be a lot of things that don’t make much sense, Bahadir,” said Augustus, and now that he was serious Bahadir almost wished he would be jovial again, “But maybe, if you stand back and take a really good look, they aren’t what they first appear.”

Quite frankly, this proclamation quite possibly made things in Bahadir’s mind even more muddled and confused than they had been before, but before he could raise that point, Augustus tilted his head as though listening.

“Well,” he said, clapping his hands and giving Bahadir another blinding grin, all the seriousness of the last few seconds washed away as though it had never existed in the first place. “It looks like our time is up. Your friends are here.”

“My friends?” Bahadir was suddenly full of the questions that he’d been unable to think off before, “But – I have to ask you things!”

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again!” said Augustus cheerfully, “In fact, I know we will! I spoke to the Avatar before me plenty of times!”

“But –”

“ _BAHADIR_!”

The white abyss and the upside-down buildings disappeared, and Bahadir was back in a dark, unlit room on his uncomfortable bed, just as he had been when he’d finally dozed off. The only differences were that the door was open, and – even more startlingly – Ivan’s pale face was inches from his own. He jumped out of his skin and hissed when he cracked his head against the wall behind him.

“What are you doing here?” he murmured, obeying Ivan’s frantic signals to speak quietly. Natalya appeared out of the gloom by the door.

“We’re rescuing you,” she whispered sharply, “Now come on! We have to go!”

They didn’t have to tell Bahadir twice. He followed the siblings out of the door and helped them to drag the two heavily sleeping guards into the room. They were sleeping to heavily that they didn’t even notice when they were dumped unceremoniously onto the floor and Natalya relieved them of their keys and staff, but Bahadir decided very firmly that questions would wait for later.

Together, the trio made their furtive way down the different corridors that made up the labyrinthine air temple. He wanted to ask where they were going, or what they were doing, but whenever he opened his mouth or even looked as though he might speak, the siblings would put their fingers to their lips and make frantic shushing motions.

They burst out into the cold, crisp mountain air, where Yekaterina was waiting with a candle, Suyosunu right beside her. Bahadir felt a weight he hadn’t even noticed being lifted from his shoulders. He’d always sort of known Suyosunu would be okay, because it wouldn’t make much sense for the strictly vegetarian Air Nomads to kill or really harm him in any way, but it was nice to be sure.

She smiled thinly when she saw them, relief colouring her features.

“Did anybody see you?” she asked softly, directing the question towards Ivan.

“No,” her brother responded, “We locked the guards in the cell, like you told us to.”

“Excellent work. Now, are you ready?”

This time, both Ivan and Natalya looked a lot less sure. In fact, Natalya was biting her lip and Ivan looked to be on the verge of tears.

“Won’t you come with us?” asked Natalya, her voice shaky – far removed from her cool, cold exterior from earlier. Yekaterina smiled sadly at her.

“You know I can’t, Natalya,” she responded, “In any case, I can distract them. I’ll be absolutely fine.”

She said it with such confidence and certainty, and yet Bahadir couldn’t quite bring himself to believe her. Judging by their pensive and frightened expressions, neither could her siblings.

“Bahadir,” said Yekaterina in a firm whisper that made Bahadir jump slightly, “You, Natalya and Ivan are going to leave, and you’re going to go to the Si Wong Desert. Ivan’s found you a map, and you need to save your friend. Once you’ve done that, you have to head to the Northern Water Tribe to begin your training.” She stared down at Bahadir, and the intensity in her eyes made him unable to look away. “You’re important, Bahadir. As the Avatar, you’re going to play a big part in winning this war. So be careful, ok? And remember what’s important.”

 

 

Bahadir didn’t look whilst the siblings said their goodbyes. Instead, he turned his back and made a great show of checking over Suyosunu for any injuries, no matter how minor.

He wasn’t really sure he wanted Ivan and Natalya to come. On one hand, they seemed friendly enough, and it couldn’t hurt to have two extra members of the team to fight alongside him if it came to it. On the other hand, he’d only known them for a day, and maybe this spoke more about him than them, but he didn’t trust them. And the fact that they were leaving behind Yekaterina to come with him – Bahadir didn’t like it. He’d started on this journey to find his family, not to break up others.

“Bahadir?” Ivan’s voice was surprisingly steady, given how upset he’d looked before. Looking up at him, Bahadir could see a new light in his eyes – a sort of steely determination as he tightened his grip on his staff. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” replied Bahadir, before something occurred to him. “But how will we travel? I don’t know if Suyosunu can take three people.”

“Don’t worry,” said Natalya, “Believe it or now, Airbenders aren’t _entirely_ useless. We won’t need to ride Suyosunu.”

Bahadir shrugged, and then made his somewhat clumsy way onto Suyosunu’s back, making sure to tuck his hat into his coat and get a good grip on the dragon. “Ready set. Bye, Yekaterina, uh, thanks for everything.”

“Be careful,” answered Yekaterina. She looked a little teary-eyed herself now. “All of you. I’ll do my best with the elders, but I wouldn’t expect much.”

There was a silence as Bahadir racked his brain for something else to say, but before he could say a word Suyosunu apparently decided that they’d waited long enough, and with no warning besides the sudden tensing of his muscles, he launched himself skywards.

Bahadir only just managed not to yell in alarm as he squeezed his knees around the dragon but managed to just make a sort of soft ‘Eeeeee!’ noise from between his heavily gritted teeth. A moment later, something darted beside them, and after a moment Bahadir realised that it was Natalya. Her staff had been opened up to reveal that it had a gliding wing, and Natalya clung to it, whilst apparently bending the air around her to remain airborne.

It all looked rather precarious, to be honest, and Bahadir wasn’t sure that he’d enjoy the way they dipped and twisted around the mountains, disappearing in and out of the thick mist that seemed to shroud everything around here.

It was also cold, and Bahadir wondered not for the first time how all of the Airbenders weren’t _absolutely_ _freezing._

But that, Bahadir decided, was not what was most important right now, as they dodged between the mountains and flew away into the night, was another question for another time.


End file.
